H.R. 2454

Psssttt . . . hey buddy, I got a nice deal on some carbon credits, straight off the docks.

If the eco-left gets its way, this won’t be such a far-fetched scenario.

Earlier this month, Europe’s top law enforcement agency (Europol) reported the continent’s so-called “Cap and Trade” system is under the control of organized crime.

Lawmakers and energy experts say the massive theft and fraud Cap and Trade has fostered in Europe should be a “red flag” to U.S. lawmakers who want to recreate the system in the United States, according to Fox News. Europol reports over the last 18 months, $7.4 billion in fraudulent credits have been purchased from organized crime figures. Under “cap and trade” businesses cannot exceed certain carbon dioxide output limits, unless they buy government issued “credits” allowing them to produce more (in effect, a tax on carbon dioxide.)

Europol estimates in some countries up to 90 percent of the entire market volume was caused by fraudulent activities. “These criminal activities endanger the credibility of the European Union Emission Trading System,” said Rob Wainwright, Europol’s director.

As is the case in Europe, it’s only a matter of time before organized crime gets into the cap and trade “racket”.

Right now, the Cap and Tax system just one U.S. Senate floor vote away from passage invites “corruption, illegality and criminal activity,” much as it has in Europe, said Max Schulz, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. ”This is the problem with politicians trying to create a market for something that the free market otherwise doesn’t value,” Schulz said. “An emissions trading market is an artificially, politically-created market…. “If we pass a system like Europe has, we’re going to get all the problems Europe has experienced,” he said. “You’re asking for a lot of problems.”

And that includes a surge in criminal activity and fraud in the carbon credit “market” – an opportunity Tony Soprano would love to get a piece of.

Western Tradition Partnership members aren’t about to sit back and let our economy get “whacked”!

Stay tuned, because we’ll be covering what is likely the first major prosecution of cap-and-trade fraud in the United States – a case in which records are set to be unsealed in early January 2010.

Western Tradition Partnership launches campaign to save American jobs from being “Cap and Taxed” away

Group alerts grassroots of Reps. Betsy Markey & Harry Teague’s support for job-killing national energy tax

DENVER – Western Tradition Partnership announced Tuesday it has launched a grassroots campaign in Colorado, Montana, and New Mexico congressional districts to inform voters of the harm the proposed “Cap and Trade” bill in Congress (H.R. 2454) will have on jobs and the economy. The bill could come up for a Senate vote in the next few weeks.

The group has labeled the bill, which imposes a new national tax on carbon and creates a speculator’s market in “carbon credit,” as “Cap and Tax” in targeted mailings. The mailings will hit districts held by Betsy Markey (D, CO-4) and Harry Teague (D-NM-2), criticizing their votes to pass the bill on June 26th , while praising Denny Rehberg (R, MT) for his opposition.

“It’s no coincidence that Markey voted for the Cap and Tax scheme after she was bought and paid for by the radical environmentalist groups in her last election,” said Jacob Leis, WTP Executive Director, Colorado. “This new multi-billion dollar national energy tax is nothing but a political payoff to wealthy East- and West-coast donors and those on Wall Street who will get rich trading so-called carbon credits. Al Gore, Betsy Markey and their ilk will take billions in new taxes from every man, woman, and child in America to shamelessly pay back those who bankrolled their elections.

“Research shows this Cap and Tax bill will destroy as many as 2.5 million jobs per year and creates the equivalent of a $4,609 tax hike on a family of four,” said Leis. “Their plan is to inflict pain on families and employers and stop any efforts at economic renewal. Even worse, the bill has no net effect on its supposed target of global temperatures.” The research was conducted by the independent, non-partisan Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis. The Heritage Foundation has no relationship with WTP.

Even President Obama admits this new national energy tax causes every person’s utility bill to “skyrocket.” (San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 2008 or on this video post.) Obama’s early admission Cap and Tax hurts working Americans makes Markey’s support even more alarming.

State Senator Greg Brophy, a farmer in Markey’s district estimates “Cap and Tax” will cost farmers in Colorado’s 4th CD nearly $600 per irrigated acre.

“It’s all pain, no gain.” Leis said, adding, “and the environmentalists intended it to be that way. More and more scientists are coming out against this bill because it exploits environmental concerns to launch an economic assault on America’s economy, which radical environmentalist have long hated.”

“It’s up to citizens to speak out against this radical environmentalist plan to downsize American jobs. Western Tradition Partnership will aggressively begin that process.”

Western Tradition Partnership is a fast-growing grassroots organization dedicated to “Rediscovering the Treasures of the West”through rational, responsible natural resource development and land use policy. WTP achieves it goals through hard-hitting issue advocacy and legislative lobbying, voter contact and public education campaigns.

This is good stuff, but of course old B.S. is only playing to his audience. His radical appointees to various commissions and Earth Justice ties tell the real tale.

Bill Maher received quite a shock on his show last Friday when his guest, Governor Brian Schweitzer (D-MT), said cap-and-trade was “the wrong approach.”

Schweitzer, who heads the Democratic Governors Association, explained that cap-and-trade, “says to the biggest utilities in America we are going to add a trillion dollars to your bottom line we are going to franchise you and only you to be the producers of CO2. I think it’s the wrong approach.”

Maher was clearly shocked that the Governor wouldn’t go along and endorse cap-and-trade. Maher was exasperated, and asked, “But isn’t it the Democrat approach?”

Schweitzer responded by saying “It might be some of the Democrats approach, but I think if you want to get to the root of the problem you establish a price of the cost of that pollution to the rest of society…”

Western Tradition Partnership (WTP) members – along with many other Americans who voiced opposition to the multiTRILLION dollar “Cap and Trade” energy tax – should be proud of themselves for derailing H.R. 2454, which was on its way to a speedy Senate vote after being rammed through the House in late June.

While this debate is now somewhat overshadowed by the Obama Adminstration’s attempt to take away the private insurance and health care freedoms of millions of citizens, we believe that Cap and Trade legislation is still the greatest and most overarching overall threat to the American way of life, and must be vigorously opposed.

The dirty little secret being withheld from the “little folks” like you and me? Our opposition campaign is working, and with continued action at this level, WTP’s Congressional insiders and Senate staff contacts tell us we could beat back a Senate Cap and Trade vote until this session, and maybe even kill the bill until after the 2010 mid term elections!

Liberal blogger Ezra Klein (who started his career with wunderkind blogger Matt Singer of Left in the West) confirms our suspicions with this Washington Post quote posted earlier today (responding to a question about going on in D.C.):

Washington, D.C.: Has the Senate set a time table for when they’re going to debate Cap-and-Trade? Obviously, it will be after the recess, but I’m nervous that if they dither and delay it much later than that, they’ll start to use the 2010 elections as an excuse to blow it off entirely.

Ezra Klein: I would bet a lot of money that we don’t see the Senate pass a serious cap-and-trade plan before the 2010 midterms.

These guys are onto something. They are seeing Senators in swing states get hammered over Cap and Trade. But we cannot be satisfied with knocking our opponents down – we must finish the job. That’s why even as the Feds throw the kitchen sink at us with radical natural resource and environmental legislation, WTP continues to sound the public alarm while we ramp up our opposition campaign to reach the elderly, business owners, farmers and ranchers, and hundreds of thousands of plain old taxpayers. The response has been very encouraging.Anyone who has the least interest in not becoming a de facto slave to the government elite should be very concerned about the implications of this bill. Here’s why:

As you know, Cap and Trade puts federal police power behind collecting “carbon taxes” – a tax on consumption of energy – which not a single person funtioning in our society could escape. Yes, this tax will cost you and me trillions of dollars and includes the laugable “cow flatulence” fee, but that’s not the half of it. The more sinister side of such legislation is the ability to control individual behavior through coercion.

You see, when combined with rapidly advancing “smart grid” technology, which is supported by big business (corporations that actually may be “evil”) — and which will likely be VERY appealing to Americans, who genuinely want to help the environment and increase energy efficiency, so long aas it doesn’t destroy their way of life in exchange for nothing — the Dynamic Duo of Cap and Trade/Smart Grid would allow government bureaucrats (and their computers) to ratchet up their carbon taxes at will, bureaucratically, without even the charade of a Congressional vote. [Read more about that angle below.]

And if at some point you can’t pay? Said bureaucrat’s computer would simply shut off power to your home or business. No hearing, no trial. A new, and very personal Dark Age.

Therefore it is critical you continue to fight Cap and Trade from now until the summer reccess is over! Western Tradition Partnership will be alerting constituents via mail and email, and while politicians are in their districts, holding rallies as YOUR cap and trade petitions (click here to sign – we’ll hand-deliver) are brought by the thousands to their local offices.

Please consider joining WTP today as we fight the anti-taxpayer, anti-jobs agenda of the Radical Environmental Left. And please SIGN OUR “NO CAP & TAX” PETITION today – your petition and personal comments on it will be hand-delivered to your U.S. Senator by our staff, and we’ll report progress to you along the way. We are winning this fight, but must stay vigilant!

To further understand the impact of Cap and Trade on the U.S. — and particularly on places far from New York and San Francisco — read this excellent, detailed article:

Finally, for an excellent analysis of the Smart Grid Scam by analysts at the Gerson Lehman Group, check out:

The Smart Grid fad is a Trojan Horse Big Brother that will be in your home under the disguise of being green. This is not just about privacy, the smart grid really is big brother. It can’t be stopped. The smart Grid will take control over everyone and everything. Why should we starve to pay for the smart grid that will enslave us? Even so, Power consumption is dropping like a rock. The US grid is not broken. The smart grid is the scam of the Millennium and will be less reliable than today. (read entire article)

The chairman (Democrat Gov. of Montana Brian Schweitzer) and vice chairman (Republican Gov. of Idaho Butch Otter) of the Western Governors Association responded sharply (PDF) to a National Taxpayers Union inquiry about WGA’s management and funding of the Western Climate Initiative, which the rest of the WGA board members — the governors of the other 17 Western states — either unknowingly or are too embarrassed to acknowledge they support.

According to Bob Zubrin, American aerospace engineer and author (The Case for Mars, 1996): “Burning one ton of coal produces about three tons of CO2. [Added weight of oxygen in combustion, I assume. - Ed.] So a tax of $15 per ton of CO2 emitted is equivalent to a tax of $45/ton on coal. The price of Eastern anthracite coal runs in the neighborhood of $45/ton, so under the proposed system, such coal would be taxed at a rate of about 100 percent. The price of Western bituminous coal is currently about $12/ton.

This coal would therefore be taxed at a rate of almost 400 percent. Coal provides half of America’s electricity, so such extraordinary imposts could easily double the electric bills paid by consumers and businesses across half the nation. In addition, many businesses, such as the metals and chemical industries, use a great deal of coal directly. By doubling or potentially even quadrupling the cost of their most basic feedstock, the cap-and-trade system’s indulgence fees could make many such businesses uncompetitive and ultimately throw millions of working men and women onto the unemployment lines.”

It doesn’t get much simpler than that!

And another easily digested tidbit (would go great with a nice Chardonnay): Earth’s atmosphere today contains about 380 ppm CO2 (0.038%). Compared to former geologic times, our present atmosphere, like the Late Carboniferous atmosphere, is CO2- impoverished! In the last 600 million years of Earth’s history only the Carboniferous Period and our present age, the Quaternary Period, have witnessed CO2 levels less than 400 ppm.

Join ATP, Stop Gang Green!

American Tradition Partnership (ATP) is a no-compromise grassroots organization dedicated to fighting the radical environmentalist agenda. We support responsible development of natural resources and rational land use and management policies. Only together can we protect access, private property rights, and affordable energy for all Americans!